The Name of Valour

by The Name of Valour (retail) (epub)

  Torrance heard the roar of a V8 engine, the clatter of tracks on tarmac, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a Bren carrier swaying up the approach to the bridge. It was out of sight of the machine guns at the far end until it had reached the peak of the hump at the centre of the bridge. It roared up the slope, gathering speed until it slammed into the first barricade. It did not so much smash through the oil drums and timbers as push them before it, all the way up to the second barricade, where it came to a halt. The machine guns on the far side opened up. Torrance could hear the bullets rattling against the carrier’s armour, saw the muzzle flash of the carrier’s own Vickers spitting tracer at the machine-gun nests at the far end. Both driver and gunner lobbed grenades, managing to get them as far as the third barricade. They exploded ineffectually. Then the carrier was reversing back the way it had come.

  No sooner had the carrier returned to the near end of the bridge than a couple of sections of Australians in Brodie helmets ran past it, pounding up to where the first barricade had been pushed back against the second. They ducked down behind the sandbags and lobbed more grenades over. But the machine guns were too far away: if the Australians were hoping the slope on the other side of the bridge would allow the grenades to roll down to the machine-gunners, they were disappointed; they just skittered into the gutters on either side of the road in that unpredictable way of rolling that grenades had, before exploding. Nothing daunted, the Australians began to clamber over the sandbags.

  That was when the Japanese machine guns at the far end of the bridge opened up again, cutting the Australians down before they could even muster a charge. Most of them died sprawled over the barricade.

  A third section of Australians charged up the bridge. Again they reached the sandbags, lobbed grenades, clambered over the barrier. Again the machine guns chattered. Three of the Australians reached the third barricade before they fell.

  No more men appeared on the bridge. With nothing left to shoot at, the Japanese fire died down. The sepoys in the house with Torrance and his companions had expended an entire belt of ammunition; one of them reached for a fresh belt, but the havildar said something in Garhwali and the loader did not bother. After a few minutes, a man in a Brodie helmet crawled back from the barricade until he was on the slope of the bridge, then picked himself up and limped the rest of the way. One by one, another four dragged themselves to safety. And that was it: five survivors out of two dozen.

  The final attempt to take the bridge at Parit Sulong had failed.

  Nineteen

  Japanese mortar shells were still dropping sporadically into the streets of Parit Sulong when Torrance, Rossi and MacLeod entered the house serving as Anderson’s brigade headquarters. Anderson himself was there, talking to Lieutenant Jennings and Sheridan. The three Argylls stood to attention and saluted. ‘You sent for us, sir?’ asked Torrance.

  Anderson returned their salute. ‘Stand easy. I’ll cut to the chase – we’re pulling out of Parit Sulong.’

  ‘That’ll be a neat trick if we can pull it off, sir.’

  Anderson gave him a wintry smile. ‘It’s about twelve miles to Yong Peng. The Japs hold the bridge to the south of here and the road to the north, but as far as we can tell the eastern perimeter is unguarded. If we break up into small parties and sneak out through the jungle, I believe there’s a good chance most of us can make it on foot.’

  ‘Carrying the wounded?’ Torrance asked dubiously.

  ‘The walking wounded will have to manage under their own steam. The rest must stay behind.’

  ‘We’re leaving them for the Japs?’ asked MacLeod.

  ‘There’s nothing else we can do.’ Anderson did not look especially happy about it. ‘I have approximately one thousand men left under my command. If we all stay here, we all end up in the bag. At least if we leave only those too badly wounded to walk, we’ll only be throwing a little over a hundred men to the tender mercies of the Japs. There’s a good chance they’ll abide by the Geneva Convention and give their prisoners proper medical care. For some of the boys we’ll be leaving behind, it’s the best chance they’ve got.’

  There was also a chance the Japanese would simply butcher the men left behind, thought Torrance, but he suspected Anderson knew that as well as he, and it would not help anyone to say so.

  ‘I’d rather stay with the wounded,’ said Sheridan.

  ‘We’ve been over this, doctor,’ said Anderson. ‘The Japanese have doctors of their own. The simple fact of the matter is that as a civilian, you shouldn’t even be here. Women and children first is the rule. I don’t have any children to worry about, thank heavens, but I do have one woman, so you leave with the first party. It’s not a matter that’s open for debate.’ He turned back to Torrance, Rossi and MacLeod. ‘As you dragged Dr Sheridan into this mess, I think it falls to you to help get her out of it, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Anderson was trying to make it sound as if it was a punishment, Torrance realised, so it would be easier for them to accept without seeming like cowards, when in truth he was offering them the chance to leave first.

  ‘If you say so, sir,’ Rossi said stonily.

  ‘I do say so. Lieutenant Jennings will go with you to show you the way. He’ll be in command of your little party.’

  ‘You know this country, sir?’ Torrance asked Jennings.

  The subaltern flushed. ‘No, but I can read a map and use a compass.’

  So can I, thought Torrance, nettled that Anderson thought he, Rossi and MacLeod would be incapable of finding their own way to Yong Peng without an officer to guide them.

  Anderson crossed to a table where a map was spread, and gestured for the others to join him around it. ‘We’re here, at Parit Sulong,’ he said. ‘Most of the ground between here and Yong Peng is likely to be low-lying and swampy, so my advice is to follow the high ground as much as possible. This is a hill to the east of town, you can see it from the eastern perimeter. If I were you, I should climb over it and try to head more or less due north-east from there. After five miles you should come to this track. Follow the track south-east – there must be a ford or a bridge where it crosses the Simpang Kiri – and eventually it will take you to Yong Peng. I’m afraid our wireless packed in this morning, but when I spoke to General Bennett earlier he assured me the town was still in our hands. Well, that’s it. Any questions?’

  ‘What about Titch, sir?’ asked MacLeod.

  ‘Titch?’

  ‘Private Grant,’ explained Sheridan. ‘One of the other Argylls who arrived with us. He suffered a mental breakdown on Monday and he’s been in a catatonic state ever since.’

  ‘He can walk, can’t he?’ said MacLeod.

  ‘We can’t risk it,’ said Torrance. ‘We’ll have our work cut out for us to get through as it is. With Titch in tow…’

  ‘Charlie’s right,’ said Sheridan. ‘You saw what he did to Primsie. If he had another fit at the wrong moment…’

  MacLeod looked disappointed, but seemed to accept what they were saying.

  ‘Well,’ said Anderson, ‘if there are no more questions, I’ll wish you good luck and hope to see you in Yong Peng this time tomorrow.’

  Jennings led the way down a side street and through the garden of the house at the end. Beyond a stretch of waste ground overgrown with weeds was a turbid stream a few yards across, with thick jungle growing on the far bank. Above the treetops, Torrance saw the peak of a thickly wooded hill perhaps a couple of miles away. They waded across, waist deep, to where Quinn and Hubbard helped to haul them out of the water. The ground beneath the trees was so thick with undergrowth, the only path through seemed to be some kind of animal track that formed a tunnel beneath the sago bushes and thorny palms, no more than a couple of feet high. Torrance squatted down to peer up the tunnel. He could see no light at the other end.

  ‘You’ll have to crawl on your bellies for the first few hundred yards,’ said Quinn. ‘After half a mile you should be well clear of the Japanese picquets.’
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  Jennings nodded. ‘I’ll go first,’ he said. ‘After I’ve gone, count ten seconds, then send Torrance and MacLeod after me. Dr Sheridan, you next. Rossi brings up the rear. All right?’

  They nodded. Jennings got down on his hands and knees, then dropped on to his stomach and crawled into the tunnel.

  Torrance noticed that Rossi was still carrying the Bren. ‘Wouldn’t you be better off swapping that for a bundook?’ he asked. With so many wounded men being left behind, there was no shortage of rifles going spare.

  ‘Sod off! I’m no’ leaving it for the Japs.’

  ‘You could strip it and throw the pieces in the stream.’

  ‘We’ve carried it this far, have we no’? Must be near three hundred miles frae where we first ran into the Japs. I’m no’ gaunae leave it behind now we’re so close to getting back to our boys.’

  ‘See you at the Union Jack Club,’ said Quinn.

  ‘First round’s on you,’ said Torrance. ‘Mine’s a McEwan’s Blue Label.’

  Quinn grinned. ‘Tight-fisted Pommy bastard!’

  Torrance crawled a few feet into the tunnel, keeping a wary eye open for scorpions and kraits, then stopped and glanced behind. MacLeod was crawling after him with a look of grim determination on his furrowed brow. Torrance crawled on after Jennings, who had already been swallowed up by the gloom ahead. With the rank, musty smell of the jungle thick in his nostrils, he crawled on.

  The tunnel seemed to go on for ever. Occasionally, other tunnels led off on either side, but even in the gloom Torrance could see enough to make out where Jennings had disturbed the leaves carpeting the ground, and follow his trail. In spite of the shade, the atmosphere in the jungle was stifling, and Torrance’s filthy and tattered shirt was soaked with sweat. He crawled on until his knees and elbows ached.

  He paused for a moment. MacLeod crawled up to his ankles and stopped, blocking Torrance’s view of the tunnel behind them. ‘Doc!’ he hissed. ‘You there?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘What about Lefty?’

  ‘I’m here…’ Rossi’s muffled voice seemed a very long away off.

  Reassured, Torrance resumed crawling, and at last came to where the jungle opened out enough for him to rise to his feet. Jennings was waiting there.

  ‘All right?’ the subaltern murmured as Torrance dusted bits of dirt and dead leaves from his knees and shirt front. Torrance nodded, and MacLeod followed them out a moment later, then Sheridan and Rossi.

  Jennings consulted his compass, and nodded through the trees. ‘This way, I think.’ He led off. Though they could stand, the foliage was still thick enough that in places he had to hack his way through the lianas with his parang. The ground began to slope up steeply beneath the trees as the path followed a spur of the hill. It took them half an hour to reach the top, but the trees growing all around them denied them any glimpse of the way they had come, or of the many miles they had yet to cross.

  ‘We’ll stop here and rest for a minute,’ said Jennings. ‘Smoke if you want.’

  Torrance took out his cigarette case, which he had refilled with smokes scrounged from one of the Australian cooks. He was about to take one for himself, then proffered them to Rossi and MacLeod first. They each plugged a cigarette in the corners of their mouths, and Torrance lit them with a match.

  He wiped his brow with a handkerchief already damp with sweat. ‘Jesus, it’s hot! Even by Malayan standards, it’s hot. This has gotta be some kind of new record.’

  ‘It’s no’ the heat,’ said Rossi. ‘It’s the humidity.’

  Torrance clenched a fist and gazed longingly at Rossi’s jaw.

  Before they had finished their cigarettes, they heard a scuffling noise on the trail behind them. Rossi levelled the Bren and Torrance unslung his Thompson, but it was only a couple of Australians. They wordlessly exchanged nods with Jennings and the others, before sinking down with their backs to the bole of a tree to light up cigarettes of their own.

  ‘Got your wind back?’ Jennings asked when Torrance, Rossi and MacLeod had thrown down their cigarettes and ground them out beneath the heels. ‘All right, let’s keep moving.’ He nodded an acknowledgement at the other two Australians, who remained where they were sitting against the tree, smoking, and began to lead the way down through the trees on the other side of the hill.

  * * *

  Kerr sat with his back to one of the trees overlooking the road at the north side of Parit Sulong and tried to ignore the agony of his leg. After forty-eight hours he had imagined he might have become used to it, but if anything the searing pain had only become more intense. He would cheerfully have cut the leg off just below the hip at that moment, if only to end the agony. For most of the previous day, tears had flowed uncontrollably down his cheeks. He still wanted to cry, but it was as if he had used up all his tears. He had not had a piss for twenty-four hours, for that matter. His eyes stung and his head throbbed.

  He turned to where Agony Payne sat beside him. A mortar shell had blown the Australian’s foot off the previous day, and now he sat with the stump of his leg thrust out before him, wrapped in a grimy, bloody bandage. Everywhere Kerr looked, he could see other wounded men sitting in clumps at the feet of the trees, a few smoking, a few others sleeping, most just sweltering in the heat of the afternoon sun. It looked as though the last of those strong enough to pull out had done so. The shelling and shooting had stopped, the only sounds were the chirping of the cicadas and the groans of the wounded.

  Payne lit a cigarette and proffered the pack to Kerr, who shook his head. ‘The Nippos’ll be here soon. Maybe then we’ll get proper medical attention.’

  They had to wait another two hours before Kerr heard someone cry out. Twisting his head, he saw a single Japanese soldier appear in the trees behind him, the butt of his rifle braced against his shoulder, a bayonet fixed to the muzzle. He stood there in the shadows for a moment, surveying the wounded men, then advanced into the sunlight, signalling other Japanese to follow him. In a matter of moments, there were Japanese everywhere. An officer began giving orders to his men.

  ‘Tachiagaru!’ an NCO barked at the wounded men.

  ‘What’s that?’ retorted Payne. ‘You fetchee English-speaking officer, Tojo. We no speakee Nippo!’

  A Japanese soldier grabbed Kerr by the arm. ‘I canna stand!’ he protested, refusing to rise. ‘Can you no’ see I’m wounded in my leg?’ He pointed to the dressing on his thigh.

  The Japanese kicked him, right where the bloodstain showed through the bandage. Until that moment, Kerr had not thought the pain could possibly get any worse, but now he discovered it could, a lot worse, so much so it was a wonder he did not pass out. He sobbed.

  ‘As prisoners of war, we’re entitled to proper medical attention,’ said Payne, resisting the attempts of another Japanese soldier to drag him to his feet. ‘It says so in the Geneva Convention.’

  The soldier demonstrated what he thought of the Geneva Convention by driving his bayonet into Payne’s stomach. The Australian screamed, then vomited blood into his lap. The Japanese stabbed him again and again, until Payne stopped screaming and his head lolled.

  Finding he could stand after all, Kerr limped up the road with several dozen walking wounded. A few men supported comrades who could not stand unassisted. The rest were bayoneted.

  The Japanese herded them into one of several sheds adjoining a bungalow in the town. Most of them had used up the last of their strength just getting there and slumped to the floor with groans, but they were jammed in so tightly there was not enough room for everyone to sit, and a few ended up sprawling on top of one another. Kerr remembered learning about the Black Hole of Calcutta while he was at school, and wondered if it had been anything like this.

  They were left in the sweltering heat of the shed for what seemed like an eternity, the stink of sweat and gangrene rank in Kerr’s nostrils. He must have passed out at some point; the next thing he knew someone was slapping him, and he opened his eyes to find a Jap
anese soldier standing over him. He was dragged outside with a dozen other men, Australians and sepoys. The Japanese marched them up the main road through Parit Sulong in the fading light of dusk. Here and there Kerr saw the bayoneted corpses of those Australians who had not hastened to obey the commands of the Japanese. He recognised Grant’s corpse amongst them.

  ‘Where do you think they are taking us?’ asked a frightened-looking sepoy.

  ‘They’re probably taking us to their regimental aid post,’ said Kerr. ‘Mebbe now we’ll get some proper medical attention.’

  The Japanese herded them to a patch of ground overgrown with lalang grass on the bank of the river, just below the bridge. Kerr looked around for a medical tent. All he saw was a Japanese soldier lying on his stomach a few feet away, the butt of his Nambu light machine gun braced to his shoulder.

  ‘Aw, Jeez!’

  The Nambu chattered and bullets whip-cracked through the air. Kerr was aware of a crimson mist filling the dusk, the Australians and sepoys collapsing all around him, and then something slammed into his chest with all the force of a sledgehammer. The next thing he knew he was lying on his back in the grass with a dead sepoy sprawled over him.

  He knew he had been shot, he just was not sure how many bullets had hit him. He was surprised by how little pain he felt now. Perhaps that would come later.

  Japanese soldiers stalked through the corpses, bayoneting anyone that still moved. Shrieks of agony filled the air. One of them drove his bayonet into the sepoy lying on top of Kerr. The Scotsman felt a fiery pain in his guts where the blade emerged from the other side of the sepoy’s body and entered his own stomach. He screamed. Realising he had drawn the soldier’s attention, he let his head loll, staring fixedly at where the dying rays of the sun edged one of the clouds above with golden light, trying to make his eyes go glassy. The Japanese withdrew his bayonet and moved on.

  Shot, stabbed… could a man survive with such injuries? He was still alive, Kerr knew that much. And he was determined to stay that way. In a short while it would be dark. He would crawl away, patch up his wounds, and somehow make it back to the British Army. With the injuries he had sustained, surely they would ship him back to Blighty and he would be out of the war?